Fortune's Dagger had anchored off the Wolf's Den a small fortune of suns ago. It floated, mostly barren; one among many of the same style, though there were differences. Each ship that berthed there had a different story, and most of them went belly up to the Maelstrom, sucking teat when they were able and keeping to the shadows when they weren't. There was money to be made -- deals to be made. And if you couldn't find your foothold in the crowd, well, you'd get trampled. That was how it was, for their kind.
The conditions that had precipated their arrival had not improved. Every day started the same, and every night ended the same, and in between everyone did their best to forget every night. Every morning they all started pretending the failures of the day before were only minor things easily overriden by a few slick words and greased palms. There'd been an official on deck, and that had been bad.
They wormed their way over and through Wolf's Den, approaching the same scrags, making the same overtures, presenting better and better offers.
There was progress and regression, a natural ebbing, and it wasn't bad except for the fact that the longer they took, the worse the final effect would be further down the line. She'd already taken her fair of hits, and had briefly considered running away -- except for the gun that had been pointed at her head with a sly, crazed grin behind it, taunting her.
She was set loose again, that morning, left to her own devices with only a goal to guide her and a threat at her back to keep her moving.
"Nim," the lad'd said.
Didn't take a genius to spot the man in the crowd, to recognize him.
She moved. There wasn't much to the Wolf's Den, and she'd tread all of it, time and time again. She'd gotten to know its strengths, and its weaknesses. It wasn't a place to lose someone in. Instinct pushed her, and she obeyed.
There was an art to slipping through a crowd, and half of it was being small enough to dive through opportune spaces. She left nary a stir as she ran, bouncing off posts when she could and landing lightly on planking. Her legs were strong. She knew her body, and knew what she was capable of; fair fights weren't part of her capabilities. What options remained involved losing sight of him, and without the full vertical space she was so used to being part of her world there just wasn't much she could do.
There wasn't really anywhere to go.
She lunged off of the boardwalk, caught a mooring chain and almost slipped from it to the water. Her fingers screamed as she got one leg wrapped on it. She was upside down as she started climbing up it, a mental map of the ship's nooks and crannies spreading out before her as she reached the ship's side. Once she'd wrestled her way atop the chain, she balanced for one dangerous moment with her heart in her throat, and jumped upwards; she barely caught the edge of a window slit and pulled herself up.
She might not be a fighter, but she'd been hauling herself around for most of her life. She knew every pain, every limit, and every exception to those limits.
She paused on the threshhold to the interior of the ship just long enough to see what was inside, and then she threw herself in.
Hide and seek.
The conditions that had precipated their arrival had not improved. Every day started the same, and every night ended the same, and in between everyone did their best to forget every night. Every morning they all started pretending the failures of the day before were only minor things easily overriden by a few slick words and greased palms. There'd been an official on deck, and that had been bad.
They wormed their way over and through Wolf's Den, approaching the same scrags, making the same overtures, presenting better and better offers.
There was progress and regression, a natural ebbing, and it wasn't bad except for the fact that the longer they took, the worse the final effect would be further down the line. She'd already taken her fair of hits, and had briefly considered running away -- except for the gun that had been pointed at her head with a sly, crazed grin behind it, taunting her.
She was set loose again, that morning, left to her own devices with only a goal to guide her and a threat at her back to keep her moving.
"Nim," the lad'd said.
Didn't take a genius to spot the man in the crowd, to recognize him.
She moved. There wasn't much to the Wolf's Den, and she'd tread all of it, time and time again. She'd gotten to know its strengths, and its weaknesses. It wasn't a place to lose someone in. Instinct pushed her, and she obeyed.
There was an art to slipping through a crowd, and half of it was being small enough to dive through opportune spaces. She left nary a stir as she ran, bouncing off posts when she could and landing lightly on planking. Her legs were strong. She knew her body, and knew what she was capable of; fair fights weren't part of her capabilities. What options remained involved losing sight of him, and without the full vertical space she was so used to being part of her world there just wasn't much she could do.
There wasn't really anywhere to go.
She lunged off of the boardwalk, caught a mooring chain and almost slipped from it to the water. Her fingers screamed as she got one leg wrapped on it. She was upside down as she started climbing up it, a mental map of the ship's nooks and crannies spreading out before her as she reached the ship's side. Once she'd wrestled her way atop the chain, she balanced for one dangerous moment with her heart in her throat, and jumped upwards; she barely caught the edge of a window slit and pulled herself up.
She might not be a fighter, but she'd been hauling herself around for most of her life. She knew every pain, every limit, and every exception to those limits.
She paused on the threshhold to the interior of the ship just long enough to see what was inside, and then she threw herself in.
Hide and seek.
